Rebels Determined to Build Socialism in Mexico
By TIM GOLDEN
Special to The New York Times
ALTAMIRANO, Mexico, Jan. 3 As, government spotter planes buzzed circles
in the grey sky and young policemen shivered in the local jail, soldiers
of the peasant army that captured Altamirano and three other towns on
Saturday morning swarmed over the squat concrete town hall today,
smashing it apart with sledgehammers.
"The orders we have are to knock it down," said a leader of the rebels
holding this rural town in southern Mexico, a thin 20-year-old who
identified him-self only as Jesus. "Our thinking is that we have to build
socialism."
That the cold war had ended seems to mean nothing to the hundreds of
insurgents who stunned their countrymen Saturday by announcing themselves
as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and declaring war on the
Government. The struggle they describe is the timeless one of poor
Indians against "the rich," the new world they envision being one where
things would simply be better.
Confusion Replaces Muscle
Government forces appeared mostly to avoid any offensive against the
rebels today after at least 84 people were reported killed in the
seizures of the four towns and the fighting that resulted as the rebels
retreated from two of them on Sunday.
The guerrillas' military weakness was obvious today along a 30-mile
stretch of rural highway that remained more or less under their control.
>From quiet conversations with townspeople and villagers, the rebels' sway
seemed a product less of any considered support than of confusion and
fear.
Yet the mere sight of scores of men and women with broad Indian faces and
assault rifles, staked out along the road, was a remarkable measure of
the despair that has taken root in this land since Spaniards began to
conquer the Maya almost five centuries ago.
"There is no longer any way to survive the situation in Mexico," said
Jesus, who described himself as the child of poor peasants from another
part of the Chiapas state, near the border with Guatemala.
'This Is Where We Live'
"There is no work, no land, no education," Jesus said. "There is no way
to change that in elections," he added, echoing the proclamations of his
superiors without seeming to mimic them. "This is not going to be a war
of two or three years. This could be a war of 25 or 30 years."
When a reporter asked the dozen men clustered around Jesus whether they
were prepared for such a sacrifice, no one spoke up. Asked whether they
wanted to go home, one said, "This is where we live."
Physically beautiful and dismally poor, Chiapas is known for the lush
jungle ruins left by the Maya, the Baroque colonial churches left by the
Spaniards and the deep inequities that; have prevailed since the cultures
met.
Near Servitude
Even after the 1910 revolution, the Indians often continued to live in
almost feudal servitude to the landowners. The state's riches, from pine
forests and tropical farmlands to vast cattle ranches, were controlled by
a small clique of European and mixed blood.
The Indians were controlled politically by village bosses, called
caciques, who were fully integrated into the Institutional Revolutionary
Party, which has governed Mexico for 65 years.
It has since become a standard photo opportunity for candidates and
Presidents of the governing party to appear in the brilliantly colored
ponchos that Indians in many villages still wear over their jeans or
skirts.
But even as President after President have declared their deep
commitments to the Indians, the social and economic problems have eased
only somewhat, and fights over scarce arable land have kept poor
peasants and farmers in perpetual conflict, often with the Catholic
Church and the Government as their respective proxies.
Dismal Data
Chiapas ranks last among Mexican states in households with electricity
(66.9 percent), last in the number of children under 14 who attend school
(71.3 percent) and last in the number of people over 14 who can read
(69.6 percent). It is fourth from the bottom in the percentage of
households with access to sewers (41.2 percent) or running water (58.4
percent).
The state has also consistently earned one of the country's worst records
of human rights abuse, and advocates for the Indians, most notably the
outspoken Bishop of San Cristobal de las Casas, Samuel Ruiz, have accused
the Government frequently of torture. Such assertions emerged again last
April after hundreds of soldiers swept through Indian villages seeking
the killers of two officers, a case that touched off some of the initial
rumors of guerrilla activity.
In an interview in San Cristobal, Bishop Ruiz's spokesman, the Rev.
Gonzalo Ttuarte, said the poverty and political domination of Indians had
eased in recent years. But he argued that the situation had also grown
more volatile as a new concentration of the region's wealth grew more
apparent.
In Rebellion Since 1712
"Any Indian who has a tiny little hovel and one change of clothes comes
to the city now and sees new cars and beautiful hotels and all of these
fine things, and they are not insensitive to that," Father Ituarte said.
"The control of the caciques has been reduced. The big landholdings have
been reduced. The problem is these things continue to exist at the door
of the 21st century."
Periodic rebellions date to 1712, when Tzeltal Indians rose up after
being forced to pay taxes to build a church and hospital in San
Cristobal. But despite some rumors earlier this year of guerrilla
activity in the sparsely populated pine forests around Ocosingo, another
of the towns seized by the Zapatista army, the new war seemed
unfathomable even for many of the people who found themselves surrounded
by the rebels today.
"Look at this," said Francis mez Sanchez, 53, a teacher in the farming
town of Oxchuc, sweeping his hand toward a spontaneous gathering of
hundreds of townspeople who seem have been stranded by the fighting.
There are no big landholders here, no rich people. How do you explain
that they burned down the town hall?
A Rebel Manifesto
In their proclamation of war, the Zapatista army, named for the peasant
hero of the 1910 Revolution, Emiliano Zapata, offered any number of
reasons.
Their struggle they wrote, was "for work, land, housing, food, health
care, education independence, freedom, democracy, justice and peace."
They also decried environmental degradation and the North American Free
Agreement, which they called a " death sentence" for Indians handed down
by President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
A 20-year-old rebel leader who gave his nom de guerre as Eliseo said the
goals could only be achieved by the fall of Mr. Salinas and his party.
"The people must rule Mexico," he said.
Another guerrilla, in a ski mask, with a semi-automatic rifle and a
walkie-talkie who would identify himself only as a 18-year-old captain,
insisted vehemently that the rebels had received no outside support, but
said they were fighting "for socialism like the Cubans have, but better."
Some peasants, like Romeo Jimenez, said the act of rebellion was enough
bring their sympathy.
"We Indians are the conquered ones," said Mr. Jimenez, 32, a farmer in
San Cristobal. "The Government always says they will help us, and they
never pay attention. We don't know those men," he said of the rebels.
"But we understand them."